Exit Through the Gift Encounter
Season Fourteen, Episode Seven Preceded By: Season Fourteen, Episode Six: Can't Find, Can't Find The Rock Followed By: Season Fourteen, Episode Eight: Haveo At You! Summary : The Chamber of the Rock is beautiful even without its featured attraction. At the center of the large room is an ornate, golden, organic-looking sculpture leading up to a small pedestal which would hold a sphere roughly the size of Rostan's head and hair. The sculpture itself is gold and silver, with Celestial writing down one side. It reads: :: The bringer of the sun grows and harvests :: The sun kisses the moons and gives them light :: Fallen from heaven blessed of the god of the sun :: That which gives life is life : The walls and ceiling are decorated with beautiful and ancient frescos. The three walls facing the party display a tryptich of scenes from Pelorite myth. The ceiling is painted to look like the sky. The floor has a beautiful red and white marble pattern. : The left scene of the tryptich shows Pelor descending from the sun in glory. He is a dark skinned man with very long brown hair and white robes. In his left hand he holds a small silver holy symbol of the sun; in his right he holds a small blue globe. He stands before a range of white-capped mountains. At his feet various humans and elves kneel and prostrate themselves. : The middle scene shows a rock laid atop a great snowy mountain. A man lies atop the rock. He wears a strange double crown which overlaps a sickle and the symbol of Cuthbert. Pelor stands above him holding a great obsidian dagger of the same sort the party found in the Axiomate hoard. He looks about to sacrifice the man. : The right-hand scene shows several peasant men working to haul a giant stone in a cart away from the Nubian Sea. At least seven are visible, with more implied. They work under the direction of a dark-skinned human cleric wearing a cleric's robes, but without a visible holy symbol. The cleric wears the same strange hat. In the distance a gold-capped lighthouse shines with brilliant blue light. : The ceiling shows a clear night sky. The two moons are painted with an incredible level of detail, and between them is a third, smaller moon. Whoever painted this was very knowledgeable about celestial bodies. : The party discusses what they know from their studies. : The Baetyl was originally much larger, and it fell from the sky into the Prime right before the first Intermediate Period. The rightmost fresco represents its retrieval. It was cut down to enhance its beauty, leading to its current size. : The hat is meant to represent a lilypad and a sickle; it represents the Nyasan unification. The man wearing it is probably Salafi, Pelor's first lieutenant. When Pelor knew he would soon ascend, he gave Salafi endless life in a ceremony depicted in the center fresco. Why Pelor was doing something that looks a lot more like Blood Sacrifice isn't exactly Caltris School doctrine. : Ashra searches under the pedestal and finds a reliquary of semi-transparent stone. Peering through the side, she sees that it contains the leg bone and preserved hand of Salafi, as well as the true holy symbol of Pelor and a small blue globe representing Pelor's dominion of the earth. In the gold near the pedestal, there are four fingerprints from a tall man with a scar in his middle finger. : Rostan knows that sounds really familiar. Oh, wait, it's his own archenemy. That fucker. He makes up for his omission by doing alchemy to the fingerprints. After a few minutes of testing, he announces that these fingerprints were done in blood, near the sea, and had also touched wormwood tree bark. : Tamiko prays and learns that Pelor was involved in philosophy, rhetoric, logic, astronomy, chiromancy, and pyromancy. : On the floor is a single long white hair. Tamiko waves her holy symbol of Furcas at it and the hair attaches to it. She uses the symbol to check the nearby areas, seeing if it can pick up anything else. Magic hair attractions, how do they work. She eventually finds a circular pattern in the dust, which has small traces of wax in it. While Ollie cannot blip, the party's casters agree that a calling spell should work in here. Galland sniffs around within the circle and smells salt and ... some strange drug. Ashra allows him to smell several illegal substances that she definitely does not have on her person, especially not here, and he is able to narrow it down to sarasin. : Nerdin, deeply uncomfortable in such a holy place, focuses his attention on the stone floor. He recognizes it as a rare kind of stone from the western Firemore Desert. : Ashra gives everyone (except Icania) levitation so that they can check out the ceiling fresco. The moons are incredibly detailed, even up close. Embedded in the mysterious third moon is a tiny blue diamond. It is magical, and not of this world -- a fragment of the Baetyl itself. Tamiko looks at it in her mirror, and sees beautiful sunlight refracting through the gem. : Leilah pulls out the Portable Sun, invokes her mother, and floods the room with light. When the light hits the Baetyl shard, a map shines forth onto one wall. Tamiko totally called that. There is a circle on one side of the Nubian Sea, one far to the north of Port Fasco, one at Port Fasco, and one at Burkina. In the mountains is an X. Ashra inputs these locations into The Map, then realizes that here and now is where the party's Pelor botnet starts. : These all appear to be sites holy to Pelor and the Baetyl, but some of them were also relevant to the Awakening. They're certainly the first concrete itinerary the party's found. Someone who's been to the future suggests that they did find a giant pile of human sacrifices and should probably figure out what's up with that, too. They keep investigating. : Leilah casts a spell and receives a vision of the Baetyl, but the vision is the same as the fresco of its recovery. The lighthouse visible in the fresco is a strange one, since it's near no known port and no one knows who maintains the structure. : Icania asks Faust to summon a small earth elemental as a test. The elemental arrives. It casts read magic on the gem and says it was affected by divination magic. The earth elemental has no other useful insights. It feels pretty uncomfortable until it gets to leave. : Other types of light and other directions fail to elicit the map or anything else from the diamond. Tamiko examines the hair; it is from the beard of an ogre. : Below where the Baetyl should be is a pressure plate. Using the dust to check for Sequestered items reveals that nothing is hidden there. The party decides not to mess with the security system. : The door to the outside is marked with fingerprints. One is very large, and stained with ink; it looks like an ogre's hand. : The party decides they've learned all they can, and finally leaves. A short hallway leads them back into the outer chamber. : The same keeper who let the party in greets them on their return. Leilah doesn't even want to admit that the party made it to the Map Room; Ashra does. Galland asks where he can buy a souvenir; he is directed to a Brother Jacob. Reon tries to give the priest his holy symbol of Pelor, and it crumbles as soon as it leaves his hand. : Galland asks for a hat and pulls it onto his head just as Icania turns on his True Seeing lenses and notices that Brother Jacob isn't so much brotherly as '' a demon.'' Galland makes the Will save forced by the hat and tries to make nice as the demon notices Ashra and Leilah. : The demon attempts to cast Bull's Strength, which Faust counterspells. It reveals itself as a Nesferati Heavy. Civilians scatter. : Ashra time-rages and hastes herself to have enough strength to repeatedly fail to buff herself. She swears a bit. : Nerdin pulls out his bow. He hates demons, and killing them is much more comfortable territory than any of this Pelor bullshit. He sinks several solid shots into the demon's torso. : Leilah casts Dimensional Anchor on the Heavy so that it can't flee. Civilians bump into each other as they try to get away from the commotion. : Galland shoots up with Cat's Grace and uses his high to tumble around the demon's attacks, stab it soundly, then tumble away again before it has a chance to retaliate. : The demon closes some of its wounds, kills a couple of nearby commoners, and wanders over to take a stab at Galland. It begins to mutter demonic curses; Nesferati can probably summon other demons, but none appear forthcoming. : Ashra finally gets her Force Screen up. : Ollie shoots an Apprentice Shot while Icania advances into melee with his axe. Leilah tries to cast Flame Strike, but it fizzles. More civilians flee. : Galland strikes the Nesferati again, then runs over to Leilah for healing. : Ashra finishes her buffs and advances; Icania can't tank the demon alone for long, and someone has to cover his retreat. Nerdin gets another good volley in. : Leilah offers Galland the use of her guisarme, reminds him that he does know how to use one of these, and sends him into battle with a pat on the back and a Heal. Galland casts a swift Expeditious Retreat to make up the distance, then gets in two good hits with the guisarme. : Ashra draws the demon's attention toward herself; it misses her every time. Faust casts Horrid Wilting, and the Nesferati explodes, blowing giant holes in the stalls nearby and leaving a neat blast impression on the floor. Those in the party who didn't resist the explosion heal their wounds from it. : Galland looks at his Helm of Unlikely Friendship. What a hat.